I cant decide whether it's better or not. Right now I don't like it because I dont recognise it. Maybe this will change.

I think the reasoning behind it is that they have split partnership with Yahoo. Yahoo used to use Google with a few rebrandings for its search engine. The severing of ties might have prompted google to make a change in their GUI.

True - I prefer the old version, plus i liked the way you could click through the the Google at the top and get to the groups/news/images etc, now you can't. Looks too naff now.

Click to expand...

Uhm, I can. It just isn't ordered in a nice bar now, instead it's just links.
To be honest, I don't care wether it's changed, I find that the changes are minimal. The logo is sleeker, the next a little tidier, but it's still same ol' Google.